Three Whole Years
by Grav
Summary: Merida builds a kingdom, in her own time.
1. Chapter 1

**AN**: Emma is getting married. So I wrote her a story.

**Spoilers**: Movie

**Disclaimer**: So many ways in which I do not own this.

**Rating**: Gen

**Summary**: Merida builds a kingdom, in her own time.

* * *

**Three Whole Years**

"I've been thinking," Merida says at dinner, using that cultured tone she'd finally perfected when her mother pointed out that it made her more likely to get her way. Her bow hangs on the back of her chair and her hair is neatly braided, though it is not pinned.

"Oh?" says Elinor. The queen no longer does paperwork at the table, but she's always thinking and is therefore sometimes distracted.

"Do tell, lass," says Fergus, holding the dogs at bay with one hand, eating what amounts to an entire hart with the other, and attempting to pay some measure of attention to his sons, if only to better anticipate any incipient chaos.

"Well," Merida says, "when the lairds made you king, you knew them. You'd fought a war together, and made our kingdom out of it. I know all the stories, but I don't really know the people. I'm to be their queen, and they don't really know me."

"We could have another gathering," says Fergus with a wink. "I thought the last one went rather well."

Elinor rolls her eyes, but holds her tongue where before she might have berated them both for taking matters so lightly. Fergus is never going to be a politician, she's accepted that now, but between his strengths and hers, they make a very good King.

"I was thinking something a bit more long term," Merida says. Across from here, Harris is baiting the hounds, distracting Fergus while Hubert dumps an entire cellar's worth of salt on their father's plate. All those lessons in keeping a straight face keep coming in unexpectedly handy. "I was thinking a year."

"A whole year?" says Fergus, setting down the bite he'd been about to take. Hamish looks disappointed.

"Each," says Merida. "One year for each clan."

Fergus makes noises like a surprised fish, but Merida is looking at her mother. The queen is thoughtful, as always, and a bit sad. She had not married Fergus blindly, as he was well-known within the clan even before he was made king, but she had never planned on ruling. She had done her best to prepare Merida, though the difference in their natures proved more ill than good. Since then, she has done her best to consider what might best suit her daughter. Merida remains adventurous, and perhaps time away from home, learning the kingdom with her feet instead of through books and lessons, might do her better.

"I think it's a good idea, dear," Elinor says. "We shall miss you, of course, but I think you're right. The clans will get to know you before you're queen, and you'll get to know your heart when it comes to them."

She means marriage, of course, which is a subject they've not revisited since the lairds left those months ago. Merida knows she can't put it off forever, but at least she and her mother have come to a middle ground about it. Meeting all the lads on their home ground might help, and seeing the other clan strongholds will help Merida rule them later.

"Right, then," says Fergus. "Three conditions. One: you get married here, three years from now, regardless of what happens between now and then."

"Fergus," says Elinor, but Merida cuts her off.

"No, mum, it's all right," she says. "You know as well as I do that the marriage will happen someday, unless you decide to marry the boys off one apiece to each of them."

Harris pauses in the middle of building a fort out of his trencher and stew, looking horrified, and then his face is covered with gravy as Hubert takes advantage of the distraction to fire his make-shift catapult. Hamish is fastening the lid back on the cellar, and Merida isn't sure he's heard, but Harris's reaction is enough for her at the moment, particularly once the hounds realize what's happened and try to lick him to death to get the drippings off his face. Elinor coughs politely, and the boys attempt to marshal themselves, but Merida can see the way her eyes dance.

"Two," her father says. "You'll come home in August for the harvest, and again for Yule."

"I'll look forward to it," says Merida. Yule is a time for family, and she hadn't looked forward to missing it. The harvest she could take or leave. Her mother has taken to showing her the accounting, rather than allowing her the freedom of the fields, and she's rather less fond of that.

"And three," Fergus picks up his shank of meat again, and doesn't notice that he immediately has the rapt attention of all four of his children. "If you don't like it, you can come home whenever you want."

"That seems very fair," Elinor says. She has done all the calculations long before her husband had, of course, but his straightforward way of stating things helps her muster her thoughts, and as much as it galls her, he and Merida do think similarly about many things. Elinor appreciates the translation.

"Will you excuse me, then?" Merida asks. "I have some letters to write."

"Of course, dear." Elinor looks at the boys with a pained expression. "Boys, if you're going to play with it, you might as well be excused too."

"Come on, lads," Merida says, and chases her brothers up the stairs.

"Three whole years, love!" Fergus says, collapsing back against the chair when they've gone.

"Most fathers lose their daughters to marriage entirely," Elinor points out. "At least you know Merida is coming back."

Fergus nods morosely, and is about to set into his plate again when Elinor comes over and puts her hand on his arm.

"I wouldn't, dear," she says.

"Ah, poor bairns," he says, grinning. "With you to spoil their fun."

She turns her head to avoid be blasted when he roars "BOYS!" in the direction of their chambers. She hears giggling in the distance, all three sons and her daughter too, and Fergus's closer rumble.

In the morning, three messengers go out, one each to Dingwall, MacIntosh and McGuffin. That afternoon, Merida begins to pack.

* * *

TBC...


	2. Year the First

**One**

It rains a lot in Dingwall, which her father has always said stunts their growth and makes them all a bit tetchy, but Merida finds it oddly comforting. Of course, she doesn't have to go outside in the foul weather, since they have insisted on treating her as a guest, and instead she spends the rainy days in the keep's library, going over the books with the young laird.

When his father's not pressing him into muscle-work, Young Dingwall proves to be not an entirely ill companion. His dreamy countenance fronts a mind that is always spinning, often inventing better ways of doing whatever task his hand is currently at. More often than not, this ends in disaster, as Merida sees firsthand the day he's taking her through the kitchens, and the cook asks him to stand in for one of the spit-lads while the boy runs for eggs.

The roast that night is only cooked on one side, though Merida had managed to step in before the meat actually caught on fire. The next morning, though, he has all these sketches with ropes and pulleys and something that might be a dog (his drafting is good, but his real-life drawings leave something to be desired), and he and Merida spend the next three days trying to find a hound they can train to work in the kitchen without trying to eat everything on hand. The cook dismisses them outright, laughing when she does it, and Merida gathers that this must happen fairly regularly.

"I think it'd be better if you were able to build an entirely new kitchen," Merida says, looking over the sketches before Young Dingwall can put them away in a rather alarmingly large folio that she assumes holds his other failed ideas. "You'd have the space that way. The problem is that all your cooks are used to where things are right now."

"Aye, I know it," Young Dingwall says. "But this is the keep I've got. What I should do is start inventing things that work with what is already here, rather than trying to force improvements where they don't fit and on people who've such established routines."

Merida brings him home for the harvest, to her father's dismay, but after a month of wreaking havoc in the fields, developing new ways to do things with very sharp objects, Fergus considers the amusement worth the original startlement. Hubert takes a shine to him, which Elinor thinks is promising for someday separating the boys, until she realizes that Hubert's own constructions have taken on a deadlier edge.

It rains even more that autumn, which before Merida wouldn't have thought possible. The clans have come in from the hills to winter in the Dingwall keep, and Merida meets them all. She finds a group of lads who like archery and a group of lasses who think her rather wild at first, but soon decide that there is something to be said for not wearing hairpins. They make a merry war-band all throughout the fall, playing at contests in the day and teaching each other their clan dances long into the night, though the lasses still treat her distantly, and she cannot determine why. She imagines what Elinor would do, and resolves to spend more time with them, even if they're doing things she would normally find distasteful.

Merida learns to spin when the rain finally turns to snow, and finds it not at all to her liking. The fine Dingwall wool is smooth thread under her fingers, but the repetition is tedious. She takes to weaving better, because it's easier to do with a group, and she's less likely to hit herself in the head with the drop spindle when she forgets herself and throws it down too enthusiastically and it bounces back to spite her.

"We don't let the young laird in here while we're at needlework," one of the older lasses tells her.

"Can't say I blame you," Merida says. "He makes enough of a mess in the kitchen."

The others laugh good naturedly, and then one of them, a short lass from the hills who can throw a stone more accurately than anyone Merida's ever met, the better to get rid of wolves that harry the sheep, says, "Will you marry him, do you think?"

It's the first time anyone's been bold enough to ask. Certainly Merida and Young Dingwall have not spoken of it. He's interesting enough, she supposes, but he seems so invested in this keep, and in making it better. It would be cruel to take him away from it for anything less than love, and Merida knows she will never love him.

"Nay," she says. "He loves it here, and my husband will have to follow me home."

The mood in the room shifts, the short lass nods, and after that the girls are much friendlier than they had been before. They turn to embroidery, something Merida doesn't mind at all, and she can recognize a wedding dress when she's working on the hem. She can hear her mother's voice in her head, filling in the blanks she'd struggled even to see before. She has nothing in the way of advice to give the bride to be, but she can stitch her hopes for joy, and so she does.

She dances with the young lord of Dingwall at his wedding, three days before she is due to return to her family. He is happier than she has ever seen him, and happier still when he reels with his short lass from the hills. As she watches them dance, Merida thinks that she has never dreamed of this; never thought of the dress she'd wear, the food they'd eat or the songs they'd play. Maybe if she had, she'd be more excited about it. Maybe if she'd ever met a lad she thought she could stand, the idea of marriage wouldn't seem so alien.

But the first year is over, and she's friends enough in Dingwall to make her mother happy, for all she knows no more about herself than she did before she got there.

* * *

TBC...


End file.
